Dell Vostro 3350 Review

Business users on a budget, take note: Dell’s mid-2011 Vostro is a force to be reckoned with. Engineered with small-business users in mind, the Dell Vostro 3350 offers outstanding application performance, AMD’s auto-switching Radeon graphics, and a well-chosen assortment of tools and services designed to help keep users up and running around the clock. With its stylish aluminum lid and spill-resistant keyboard, this 13-inch thin-and-light notebook is built to last, and it’ll give you close to a full workday’s worth of battery power between charges. Our complaints are minor: The eight-cell battery adds a bit too much girth to the Vostro’s profile for our liking, and the display’s viewing angles are a bit narrow. Other than that, we’re very pleased with this system.

You can configure the Vostro 3350 with a variety of Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 processors and populate it with up to 6GB of memory. Hard drive options range from 320GB to 750GB, and select models offer the option for a 128GB solid-state drive. Prices begin at $549 for a basic Core i3 model and can run up to $1,246 for a full-blown Core i7 model. We tested a Core i5-based unit, which carried a $946 price tag as configured.

Design

At 4.8 pounds, the Vostro 3350 is a tad heavier than the competing 13-inch Asus U31JG-A1 (4.2 pounds), but it still manages to stay fractionally lighter than the Samsung QX410 (5 pounds) and Toshiba Satellite E305-S1990X (4.9 pounds), both of which are slightly larger 14-inch notebooks. The Vostro 3350 is 1.2 inches thick when configured with a four-cell battery, but the eight-cell battery that came with our review unit added more than half an inch of height at the rear of the chassis and pitched the notebook at a downward angle.

The lid is wrapped in a durable aluminum shell that has a nice matte finish (Dell calls it "Aberdeen Silver"), which is smudge-free and cool to the touch. (Dell offers the Vostro 3350 in two other exotic-sounding hues, too: Lucerne Red and Brisbane Bronze). A Dell logo is stamped into the center of the lid, and a slice of black trim adorns the front edge. The lid is attached to the base by two metal hinges that offer just the right amount of resistance when moved. They give the notebook a solid, well-built feel.

The Vostro’s aluminum shell is attractive and durable.

The port selection is typical for a thin-and-light notebook. The left side of the chassis holds two USB 3.0 ports, an Ethernet port, and a tray-loading DVD burner. (Blu-ray is not an option on the Vostro 3350.) The right side is home to HDMI and VGA video outputs, headphone and microphone jacks, and an eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port. There’s also an eight-format flash-card reader embedded in the front edge on the right side. (It reads and writes to cards in the SD, SDHC, SDXC, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, xD-PictureCard, and MicroSD formats.)

Headphone and microphone jacks, an eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port, and HDMI and VGA video ports are located on the right side of the chassis.

Features

The Vostro’s 13.3-inch display has a maximum resolution of 1,366x768 and is treated with a matte, anti-glare coating that is non-reflective. Color quality is excellent, and small fonts appear crisp and legible, but off-angle viewing is not ideal; there’s noticeable color shifting when viewed from much off to the side. Images from the 1-megapixel Webcam embedded in the display’s upper bezel are too grainy for keepsake purposes, but the camera performs well enough under both bright and dark lighting conditions for videoconferencing use, and Dell preloads Skype, so you can make video calls right out of the box. You also get Dell’s Webcam Central, a neat little utility that lets you take quick snapshots and videos as well as add cool effects like headgear, eyeglasses, and wacky hairdos to the mugshots you capture.

The full-size, spill-resistant keyboard is firm, and the Chiclet-style keys are evenly spaced and a pleasure to type on. Pressing the Fn and F6 keys activates white backlighting that illuminates each key label, as well as an outline around each key. The backlighting is bright enough for typing in the dark, but it's not too bright to be annoying to those around you. The touch pad and mouse buttons are the same color as the matte-black wrist rest and are framed by a sliver of chrome trim. The buttons are a tad noisy to click, but they and the touch pad are very responsive. The Vostro’s speakers are standard notebook fare; they’re moderately loud but lack bass.

The Chiclet-style keyboard was comfortable under our fingers and is backlit for working in the dark.

On the right side of the keyboard deck is a fingerprint reader that works with DigitalPersona’s Fingerprint software, an easy-to-use wizard-based security program that lets you replace password access to your PC with fingerprint swipes. Above the keyboard are three hot keys. The first opens the Windows Mobility Center app, which lets you access Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, touch-pad, fingerprint-reader, and battery settings from a central console. Another key opens the Dell Support Center, where you can access an owner’s manual, run hardware diagnostics, manage your hard drive, and get drivers and other downloads. (Here you can also access Dell’s DataSafe online backup service, a member-based service that comes with 2GB of free online encrypted storage.) The third button is programmable; you can set it to launch the application of your choice. A backlit power switch sits off to the left side.

On the left side are two USB 3.0 ports, an Ethernet jack, and the tray for the DVD burner.

Wireless connectivity comes by way of an Intel Centrino Wireless N 1030 adapter, which handles connectivity via both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0. Mobile broadband is not available on this particular model, as it is a set configuration, but three other configurations of this Vostro do offer it. The CPU and memory specs vary across those models, however. The same goes for the hard drive. Our review unit came with a 320GB (7,200rpm) platter-based drive, but you’ll have to choose a different Vostro 3350 model (there are eight of them in all ) to boost the storage capacity.

In addition to the fingerprint reader and the encrypted backup service, the Vostro 3350 comes with a 15-month subscription to Trend Micro’s Worry-Free Business Security Services, a cloud-based service that protects your Vostro from viruses, spyware, spam, and hackers. A 24-month subscription costs an additional $20, and for $40 you can get a 36-month subscription.

Performance

The Vostro 3350 is built around Intel’s Core i5-2410M processor (one of the chip giant's 2011 Sandy Bridge processors) and 4GB of system memory. It also uses a power-efficient graphics solution, similar to Nvidia’s Optimus technology, that automatically switches between a dedicated AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics processor for applications that require enhanced graphics performance and the integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 chip for when you don’t need much graphics muscle and need to save on battery life.

Performance results were impressive across the board. On our PCMark Vantage test, which measures overall system performance, the Vostro 3350’s score of 6,939 was more than 1,000 points higher than the category-average score for thin-and-light laptops (from January 2010 to present). On this test, it trumped both Samsung’s QX410 (6,108) and the Asus U31JG-A1 (5,816). Neither of these laptops was running a Sandy Bridge CPU when we tested it, but both are priced in the same ballpark. A more relevant comparison would be the $1,389 Lenovo ThinkPad T420s, which is a business-focused machine (unlike the other two, though one could argue that those would work just fine for some businesses, as well). The ThinkPad T420s, priced $440 more than our Vostro test machine, scored a strong 7,779 on this test, which makes sense given its faster-clocked and more powerful 2.6GHz Intel Core i5-2540M processor.

On our CPU-intensive Cinebench 10 test, which we use to gauge raw processing power, the Vostro 3350 turned in a strong score of 9,487, which topped the category average by about 1,700 points and understandably trailed the ThinkPad T420s’ score of 10,823. Three similarly priced consumer (as opposed to business-centric) notebooks edged out the Vostro 3350, however, so it’s not an exemplary score.

On our Windows Media Encoder test (in which we convert a standard 3-minute-and-15-second video clip to DVD-quality format), the Vostro 3350 completed the task in 3 minutes and 32 seconds, which is 1:26 faster than the thin-and-light category-average time and almost half a minute faster than the Samsung QX410. The competing Toshiba Satellite E305-S1990 beat it by just 1 second. And on our iTunes Conversion Test (in which we time how long it takes to convert 11 standard MP3 files to AAC format), the Vostro 3350 encoded our files in 2:35. That’s 1:14 faster than the thin-and-light average and shares the lead with the Satellite E305-S1990.

The eight-cell battery that came with our test model adds around half an inch to the Vostro’s height.

So much for productivity use. The Vostro 3350 delivers very good graphics performance for a thin-and-light notebook, as well, thanks to its AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics chip. It scored 5,669 on our 3DMark06 test at 1,024x768 resolution, which is 1,320 points higher than the category average. At its native resolution (1,366x768), its score of 5,198 was 1,953 points higher than the average and topped the ThinkPad T420s (3,190), QX410 (3,679), the U31JG-A1 (4,241), and the E305-S1990 (4,385). Although this is a business notebook, you can look forward to some after-hours gaming; it managed a very playable 43.6 frames per second (fps) on our Company of Heroes DirectX 9 gaming test and 28.1fps on the DirectX 10 version of this test. Both tests were run at the Vostro 3350’s native resolution.

There is one caveat to running at full graphics power: The cooling fan revs up when the graphics processor starts doing its thing. Granted, the noise is not nearly as loud as the MSI GT683R’s Cooler Boost fans, and it's not what you’d call excessive, but it is noticeable.

The Vostro 3350’s eight-cell battery may add some unwanted bulk, but in return you get a good long time between charges. On our DVD Battery-Rundown Test, in which we play a movie until the battery dies, the Vostro 3350 lasted exactly 6 hours. That’s 2 hours and 30 minutes longer than the thin-and-light category average and nearly an hour longer than the Asus U31JG-A1. Only the 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro lasted longer in this category of laptops with a time of 7 hours and 30 minutes. For computing on a long flight, or in a moving vehicle away from an AC outlet, this machine has some of the better endurance numbers out there.

Conclusion

Dell backs the Vostro 3350 with a basic one-year parts-and-labor warranty that includes next-business-day onsite service and telephone support during normal business hours. It also comes with a one-year ProSupport plan that gives you 24/7/365 support via phone, chat, and e-mail, as well as collaborative support for third-party applications, and access to what Dell calls “escalation management” personnel that will help you diagnose and resolve critical events quickly. For an additional $75, you can upgrade to a two-year basic and ProSupport plan, or get a full three-year package for $125.

Dell’s Support Center helps get small-business users up and running with utilities such as PC Checkup, as well as the latest driver downloads.

In keeping with the business-notebook mantra, the Vostro 3350 is (thankfully) bloatware-free. In addition to Windows 7 Professional and the aforementioned security, Webcam, and support software, you get Roxio Creator Starter Edition, which provides DVD-burning, backup, and restore capabilities, and CyberLink's PowerDVD 9.5 media-player software. On the whole, the software that's included is mostly a good, useful mix.

The Dell Vostro 3350 not only delivers very good productivity and graphics performance in a thin-and-light chassis, but it also offers small-business users IT-level support direct from Dell without the overhead required to staff and maintain a dedicated IT department. Even with the bulky battery, this versatile notebook is light enough to take anywhere and is built to withstand the rigors of frequent travel. For small-business buyers looking for a thin-and-light travel companion, this machine, in the appropriate configuration according to needs and budget, should top their very short list.

﻿

TERMS OF USE

ComputerShopper may earn affiliate commissions from shopping links included on this page. To find out more, read our complete Terms of Service.